What Happened When Instagram Deleted This Photographer’s Breastfeeding Pics

Kimberly Wang·Aug 6, 2015

Instagram has become kind of a stickler for their no-nudity rules, recently making news for banning hashtags that they say users use to upload pix that violate their terms: #edm, #goddess and #curvy — the latter of which they have unblocked. They’ve admitted that their banning of search terms and deleting of accounts that “violate” their no-nudity rule is not a perfect science — and often times result in serious user backlash. (Hello! #bringbackgoddess!)

What they did last Saturday to Australian photographer Melissa Jean Wilbraham was a serious oversight. The photog specializes in taking mother and baby photos and is actually retained by The Sunshine Coast Private Hospital in Queensland as their official baby photographer.

Her Instagram account featured some seriously precious moments between new moms and their infants. She captures stunning photos of pregnant women, birth and everything after that — including a number of breastfeeding photos.

Instagram’s policy allows images of breastfeeding, but Melissa’s account was shut down suddenly last Saturday, saying that she had violated Instagram’s terms of policy and that, for the type of “violation” her page incurred, her account could not be restored. She posted about her plight on Facebook, and got overwhelmingly positive support.

Eventually, Instagram caught wind of their mistake and reached out to Melissa to apologize.

Thankfully, they also reopened her account. But it’s what they did next, however, that really restore our faith a bit in the social media platform. They posted their own intimate breastfeeding pic on their official account from the user @motherofthewild with the story behind the picture as well as this acknowledgment: “This post is celebrating World Breastfeeding Week 2015.”

Clearly, the social network wants to make it known that they respect breastfeeding. Big ups to all the moms out there.

What do you think about the way Instagram handled their mistake? Tell us in the comments below!